Abortion-rights protesters show up at justices' homes

Protests over a leaked Supreme Court document that would overturn the ruling that made abortion a federal right have intensified in the US, with demonstrators showing up outside justices' homes, and fencing installed around the court building in Washington.

Abortion rights protesters marched to the homes of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Maryland on Saturday night.

"The time for civility is over, man," protests organizer Lacie Wooten-Holway, 39, told Bloomberg. "Being polite doesn't get you anywhere."

Kavanaugh is among the five justices whom the website Politico reported on May 2 had cast preliminary votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. If the ruling were overturned, abortion laws would be determined by the individual US states.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and it was unclear how Roberts — who ordered an investigation into the unprecedented leak — planned to vote. Roberts also said that the draft does not mean the opinion is final.

The court's ideological make-up is six conservatives and three liberals, although Roberts sometimes has split with the conservative majority.

A group called ShutDown DC is planning to hold a protest outside Alito's house on Monday.

A White House official told Fox News Digital in a statement Sunday that President Joe Biden, who is Catholic, opposes any "attempts to intimidate" justices.

"As Jen (outgoing White House press secretary Psaki) reiterated last week, the President has made clear throughout his time in public life that Americans have the fundamental right to protest under the Constitution, whatever their point of view. But protests must be peaceful and free of violence, vandalism, or attempts to intimidate, all of which he condemns in any case."

Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court's most conservative jurists, said Friday at a judicial conference in Atlanta: "We are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don't like. We can't be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want."

An 8-foot-high security fence was erected around the perimeter of the Supreme Court building late Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the US Senate will vote Wednesday on legislation to codify abortion rights into law, in reaction to the leaked draft, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

"Every American will see how every senator stands," the New York Democrat said during a news conference in New York. He said Republicans "can't duck it anymore. Republicans have tried to duck it."

Schumer, who said he will file cloture on Monday ahead of the Senate vote, called the court's draft opinion an "abomination".

"Choice should not be up to a handful of right-wing justices. Choice should not be up to a handful of right-wing politicians. It's a woman's right. Plain and simple," he said.

"This is about something so serious and so personal and so disrespectful of women," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in an interview Sunday with CBS' Face the Nation.

Pelosi also pushed back against remarks made Wednesday by California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the party wasn't doing enough to counter Republicans on the abortion issue.

"We have been fighting against the Republicans in the Congress constantly," she said.

US Congressman Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, sent a letter Saturday to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to protect churches facing protests.

"We write to you today extremely concerned by multiple reports surfacing that left-wing activists intend to protest, and possibly disrupt, church services this weekend in direct response to the leaked opinion authored by Justice Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade," Lee and Roy wrote.

The lawmakers noted that a Catholic Church in Boulder, Colorado, was vandalized Wednesday with graffiti.

In Wisconsin, the anti-abortion group Wisconsin Family Action said vandals threw at least one Molotov cocktail into their Madison headquarters over the weekend.

The intensity of both sides of the abortion issue assures it will be a factor in the November midterm congressional elections.

Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, a non-profit political advocacy group, told Fox News Digital over the weekend that he believes Democrats face a dilemma come November.

"As far as Catholics are concerned, Catholics are very practical voters, which is why many of them swing both of the political parties. I think Democrats need some Catholics in order to win many key races, and to the extent that Democrats align themselves with the extreme left, I think they're playing with fire."

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has steadfastly opposed abortion.

John White, a professor of politics at Catholic University of America in Washington, told Fox News Digital of the protests: "I'm not sure that they move public opinion all that much. You're just seeing the activists on both sides here. I think the issue is a complicated one, public opinion wise, and I think that it's more nuance than people believe.

"Americans generally support abortion in the first trimester; they don't support it as a form of birth control," he said. "They do support it in terms of rape, incest, life of the mother; they don't support abortion in the second and third trimesters, and all of that (has) definitely been very, very stable over the years, frankly. So, I don't think that the ending of Roe changes that aspect of public opinion."

Of the issues facing voters in the fall, he said: "Is it going to be inflation, the economy or is it going to be this issue? I still think it's inflation and the economy, generally."

Former vice-president Mike Pence told an anti-abortion audience in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Thursday to pray that conservative justices who've been targeted stand strong.

"Our Supreme Court has a chance to undo that historic wrong once and for all," Pence said to 1,250 people at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, the local Herald Journal reported. "Roe must go."

Reuters contributed to this story.